Theatre review: Henry VI (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

The Globe's announcement that last winter's Richard II was the start of the complete Henriad cycle being performed on their stages this year was something to get excited about but also came with the inevitable problem for the company: The first tetralogy is full of popular hits but while the second ends on another crowd-pleaser in Richard III, the three Henry VI plays that precede it are a much harder sell. Peter Hall and John Barton's Wars of the Roses trilogy compressed them into two plays, and as it turns out the Globe Ensemble's way around the issue is even more drastic, chopping and changing them into a single three-and-a-half hour epic. In reality, and entirely unsurprisingly, if there is such a thing as a massive fan of Part One they should probably not get their hopes up - the fact that King Henry (Jonathan Broadbent) is already old enough to walk and talk as the play begins should be a clue that the largely unrelated prequel wouldn't figure, and we open with the introduction of the figure who will haunt the whole second tet, his queen Margaret (Steffan Donnelly.)

Theatre review: Henry V, or Harry England (Shakespeare's Globe)

Now I'm not saying things in my day job have been a bit fraught lately, but there's been a lot of office discussions about the theory that sociopaths make the most natural and successful company directors. It's a thought you can't help but apply to one of England's best-loved kings when, as with the Globe Ensemble's Trilogy Day performances, the same company play Henry V following straight on from Henry IV Part One and Part Two. For those first two plays designer Jessica Worrall draped the theatre's middle gallery with the standards of many noble houses involved in the fighting, but now they've been replaced and it's just Henry's three golden lions that adorn the whole theatre; a sign that there's no more time for infighting and now everyone's together under one banner against a foreign foe? Or that it's now the Plantagenet way or the highway?

Theatre review: Hamlet (Shakespeare's Globe)

After the “teaser” of the touring Twelfth Night and Shrew, it’s time for the main season as Michelle Terry takes over as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe. Not only has the venue gone back to having an actor in charge (the first one to hold the post will be returning later in the summer) but the idea of the productions being “actor-led” has been heavily promoted leading up to her first season; in fact the new Globe Ensemble’s first pair of productions were originally announced as being put together without a director, although Federay Holmes and Elle While have since been brought in to fulfil that role. This reliance on actor input is apparent, in both positive and negative ways, in the opening show of the Terry era, and she’s come straight in to take on a challenge, playing the title role in Hamlet*. The Prince of Denmark is in mourning two months after the sudden death of his father, but the royal court around him has already moved on.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe & Apollo Shaftesbury Avenue)

Not a PREVIEW DISCLAIMER as such, apparently newspaper critics are not being invited to review this production until after its West End transfer, so the whole Globe run is either fair game, or we're to infer that it consists entirely of previews. In any case, one of the papers has already broken that embargo.

Mark Rylance was the original Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe (ironically enough, since he presumably considers the venue's name to be inaccurate) and, for reasons I won't go into unless anyone is especially interested, an interview of his where he discussed his plans for the venue rather put me off the place, hence my never having visited it until four years ago. Having now seen plenty of enjoyable shows at the Globe though, I didn't feel the need to stay away from the return of Rylance and his Original Practices team, his first since 2006. As well as a new production of Richard III (which I've booked at the very end of its run to leave a decent gap after seeing the RSC's version) director Tim Carroll also brings back perhaps the most famous production of Rylance's tenure, with him as Olivia in Twelfth Night. Unbeknownst to each other, a pair of twins wash up on the Illyrian coast after a shipwreck, where they get confused for each other by the households of the Duke Orsino, and the object of his romantic affections, the grieving lady Olivia.